Fourth of July and Canada Day fireworks displays make for a great boating outing with family and friends. The water mirrors the show making it even more spectacular.

To help you enjoy fireworks by boat in 2013, we’ve created this interactive Google Map. Please use it and pass it along to your boating friends.

Bungs can be purchased at marine retailers or made in a home workshop. Only use softwood, like pine or cedar, for bungs.

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A 3/4-inch hole 2-1/2 feet below the waterline admits water at a rate of 24 gallons-per-minute. That’s 1,440 gallons-per-hour. A 2000 GPH bilge pump would be hard-pressed to keep up with that flow, unless its wiring had no voltage drop, the discharge hose was smooth-bore and the hose run had no sags or bends. Stopping the flow is better than relying on the pump to handle it.

Boating Safety Is No Joke

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Governments and organizations the world over proclaim all kinds of commemorative days and weeks. Some of these are as recognizable in name as they are for their intended purpose. Examples include National Non-Smoking Week, National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week, National Hurricane Preparedness Week and National Mental Health Week.

But some commemorations of the calendar are less well known and seemingly created either to benefit special interests more than the public good, or to decry another special interest’s interests. It all depends upon your point of view.

Eric Brossier and family: True boating adventurers.

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BOATING has crossed the Bering Strait aboard a PWC, trailered a boat the length of Baja, and ran an outboard-powered Pro-Line from Maine to Mexico via the Mississippi River, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway. We’ve run boats through narrow canyons roiling with white water, raced a Cigarette boat against a Ferrari Testarossa on, and alongside, Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida, Keys. We are the custodians of the Bermuda Challenge, presenting two awards to intrepid mariners for their courage, persistence and seamanship just this year.